Selected Later Poems

by C. K. Williams, C.K. Williams

A selection from the last twenty years of C. K. Williams's career, plus new work--proof of his enduring power

C. K. Williams's long career has been a catalog of surprises, of inventions and reinventions, of honors. His one constant is a remarkable degree of flexibility, a thrilling ability to shape-shift that goes hand in hand with an essential, enduring honesty. This rare, heady mix has ensured that his verses have remained, from book to book, as fresh and vibrant as they were when he first burst onto the scene.

Selected Later Poems --a generous selection of the last two decades of Williams's poetry, capped by a gathering of new work--is a testament to that enduring vibrancy. Here are the passionate, searching, clear-eyed explorations of empathy in The Vigil ; here are the candor and revelation of Repair ; here are the agonizing morality of The Singing and Wait , and the unsparing reflections on aging of Writers Writing Dying ; here are the poignant prose vignettes of All at Once .

Williams's poetry is essential because its lyric beauty, precise and revealing images, and elegant digressions are coupled to a conscience that is both uneasy and unflinching. Selected Later Poems is at once a celebration of Williams's career, an affirmation of his continued position in the pantheon of American poets, and a kind of reckoning--a reminder of the ways in which art can serve both beauty and justice.

Genres: Poetry

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 2015

Reviews

[World Literature Today]

"When C. K. Williams died last year, he left behind more than half a century’s worth of superb work as well as a sterling reputation attested to by a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. Williams has always been a versatile poet—like his hero, Whitman, he contained multitudes—but he was best known early in his career as a political poet in the Vietnam era. His later work still contains much political and cultural commentary—The Singing, with selections included in this volume, is his most political of the late works—but as his Selected Later Poems shows, Williams is a poet of meditation, more in the tradition of the inwardly focused Donne and Herbert than of public poets like Dryden or Pope. Especially in his later works, Williams transcends the merely “confessional” to become one of America’s greatest poets of the meditative, personal lyric." - Benjamin Myers

This book was the featured review of our May/August 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:

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